The Idle Little Aunt of a Genius Villain in the 1990s

Prepublication title: My Villainous Big Shot's Biased Mom [The 1980s], please add it to your favorites!

Apocalypse-era powerhouse Jiang Ning wakes up as the wicked aunt of a genius villain in an angsty romance novel.

She inherits her brother's vast fortune, then abuses his two sons, eventually leaving one disabled and the other to die of illness.

Once the disabled elder son, Jiang Yu, takes power, the first thing he does is send Jiang Ning to a psychiatric hospital.

The way to change Jiang Ning's fate is to please the future big shots, heal them, and raise them right. But when Jiang Ning looks at the two undernourished little bean sprouts in front of her, she thinks, Please them?

No. She'd rather lie flat.

After enjoying more than a decade of carefree living, a little hardship at the end is only what she deserves.

Besides, Jiang Ning doesn't forget to get the most out of what she's got. Facing the eight-year-old genius villain, she says:

"Kid, can you put a couple of wheels on this recliner? Electric ones."

"And get me two machines that pick grapes and pop them in my mouth, plus two that pour tea and fetch things."

In the middle of summer, Jiang Ning lounges in her chair, eating grapes, while a three-year-old helps fan her. Jiang Ning says, "This is the life!"

Jiang Yu: ...

Jiang Yu is reborn, back in the year before his younger brother, Jiang Qi, died of illness. He swears he'll protect his brother from the wicked Jiang Ning.

But there's no abuse, no torment.

Just one couch potato who never gets out of bed, twenty-four hours a day.

Worse still, the big shot Si Qi from the capital is actually pursuing her. He's a master strategist in business, but blind and clueless in love. Can he not see the rotten nature beneath Jiang Ning's beautiful exterior?!

A cool, unbothered, lie-flat big-shot heroine x a perfect, devoted CEO hero

Prepublication title: My Villainous Big Shot's Biased Mom [The 1980s]

Qiao Li transmigrates to the 1980s and becomes the wealthy wife of a millionaire in a period novel.

The good news is that her husband is rich and generous. His favorite thing to do is give her money and stay away from home.

The bad news is that both her sons are major villains with tons of page time in the original novel.

The younger son, whom she favors, is a witless cannon-fodder villain. The older son, whom she neglects, is a composed, calculating villain. Both will become obstacles in the male lead's path, eventually squander the family fortune, and leave her working away from home in her fifties, where she'll die of illness.

The older son, Lu Shaoyan, seems mature and steady, but is actually starved for affection and sensitive. He makes a point of ignoring the male lead and fighting his younger brother to the end.

The younger son, Lu Shaoci, is every bit the ringleader he seems. When he grows up, he'll be good for nothing, with his new company running a deficit every day. All it takes is a little provocation for him to start plotting to replace his brother and inherit the family business.

The male lead plays them both like puppets with one line: "You'll never measure up to your brother/your younger brother."

Qiao Li gets it. The problem lies within the family.

So now she'll make those two an unbreakable team.

First comes fairness in how she treats them. In everyone's eyes, Qiao Li changes. She stops cleaning up Lu Shaoci's messes and buying him snacks, and no longer nags him every day. The neighbors can always hear Qiao Li praising Lu Shaoyan.

Next comes cooperation for mutual benefit. "Whoever gives me a shoulder rub today gets these five jiao."

"The older one cooks today, and the younger one does the dishes."

"You two bring home this fifty-jin load of dates, peach kernels, peanut brittle, and other New Year treats together."

Finally, they must keep pace with each other, competing as they cooperate and cooperating as they compete.

Soon Lu Shaoyan's awards cover the whole wall, his cooking is the best, and Lu Shaoci does the cleanest dishes.

At first, their father had plenty of complaints. But after seeing the results, he could only say helplessly:

"She must have her reasons for doing things this way..."

*

Lu Shaoci has a national entrepreneur for a father and comes from a military family on his mother's side. Since his mother dotes on him, he's the most important person in the whole family.

But lately, he's noticed his mother has changed. He's felt it more than anyone. After a fight, he goes without clean clothes for days. His rivals gang up on him, and even his lackeys leave because he can't give them pocket money.

He goes to complain to his maternal grandparents.

His mother says, "Do you know why they dote on you? They care about me, so they extend some of that affection to you."

He goes to his father for backup.

His mother points right at his father's nose. "You never got involved when I was raising the kids, so don't think you can get involved now."

To win his mother back from his scheming older brother, surely doing the dishes and cooking can't be that hard. Anyone can do that.

And acting cute and obedient? Anyone can do that.

And getting the highest grades in his year? Anyone can... do that.

As it turns out, he's not very good at it. But when he goes from last place to the top ten in his year, he gets praise from his mother for the first time in ages.

And he can actually learn! He's not the brainless idiot his classmates say has nothing but muscles in his head.

In the end, he stands onstage to give a speech. "The person I'm most grateful to is my mom... And my brother, a tiny bit, too."

Their dad: ...I got gracefully left out of the speech, too?

Reading Guide

1. I'm terrible at writing blurbs, but give it a try. This is a raising-kids story. The big-shot villain in the blurb is the older son, and their dad is the domineering CEO male lead. There are character arcs and romance.

Theme: A couch potato who just wants to lie flat in a period novel